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Behavioral Corporate Finance

This course is open for applications from May 1 – May 31

Traditional corporate finance assumes that managers and investors are rational and that capital markets are efficient. This is, however, often not the case. The behavioral approach to corporate finance relies on evidence from psychology in terms of personality traits and cognitive biases affecting the behavior of agents. Behavioral Corporate Finance complements the traditional corporate finance models and provides the bridge – fills the gap – between the standard corporate finance textbook and empirical observations from the real business world. 

Behavioral Corporate Finance identifies the key psychological obstacles to optimal behaviour and provides guidelines to mitigate own obstacles and exploit other agents’ obstacles in relation to 

  • capital budgeting 
  • valuation 
  • M&A 
  • real options 
  • capital structure 
  • corporate governance 
  • corporate internationalization 

Thus, Behavioral Corporate Finance teaches students to use tools from corporate finance in a real-world setting where behavioral aspects related to personality traits and cognitive biases influence decision-making.

Exam info and full course description

Exam info and full course description can be found in the course catalogue.

Admission Requirements

Course specific:

A Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration or Business Economics or an equivalent degree. Knowledge of Corporate Finance or equivalent course is required.

General:

Exchange students: nomination from your home university

Freemovers: documentation for English Language proficiency

You can read more about admission here.

Lecturer

Tom Aabo

Associate Professor